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WRITTEN UPON MY SKIN | CHAPTER 1: A New Friend

It was the last weekend of summer vacation and Conner was spending it by being a recluse. He didn't mind. At least he thought he didn't. With his parents working all the time, their family's recent move to Grand Haven city, and his disposition for failing at most forms of social interaction, Conner thought that spending his last Saturday by himself -- two days before his sophomore year started -- was perfectly fine. Preferable, even.

You need to get out and explore the city, Conner, his mom would say.

Don't you want some friends before you start school? his dad would urge.

Conner, being Conner, would shrug and avoid their questions. He was good at that, the avoiding of things that made him feel cornered or uncomfortable. To him it was an art form. If he was in a large room with only two other people, he could make himself disappear yet never leave. His mom called it deflecting. He called it surviving.

A small beep alerted him to the fact that he had a new email. Logging into his account, he clicked on the email. It was his schedule for the year and a map of the school. Even though 10th grade was just two days away, with the list of classes and a map staring at him from the other side of his computer screen, it made everything more real. Conner must have lost touch with reality for a little while, what with the move and everything. This was his wake up call.

He sighed and printed out the documents, then placed them in the black backpack he had sitting by his bedroom door. At the moment the bag's interior was only occupied by a few bound notebooks, a leather pouch of writing utensils, and a manila folder where Conner kept important documents. His schedule and map were in there now. Tomorrow he'd look them over and try to memorize where his classes were located.

New kid in a new school.

Oh, what fresh hell this was going to be.

His morbid thoughts of Monday morning were interrupted by a series of different toned beeps. An IM. Odd. He hadn't messaged anyone in a while; almost a year in fact. This realization was almost enough to make him delete the missive flat out. Conner had a weird frame of mind when it came to talking to people online. It went against the grain regarding his survival rule.

But, while he was a cautious person, Conner also had a powerful curiosity. It had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion.

He paused, thinking, considering.

He opened the message anyways. He was 16 now. He was a fucking man, goddammit.

The IM was from someone called Cyberheart. Interesting name. The message below was short. Only five words. They made his heart ice over.

[09:27:33 PM] @CYBERHEART: Did you just move here?

What? No, really, what? There's no fucking way that someone besides his mom or dad should know that fact. Conner hadn't been in Grand Haven for more than two weeks, and in that time he hadn't talked to soul besides the she-lion that had helped him register for school.

Maybe Mom's been talking about me with her coworkers, Conner reasoned.

But that didn't make any sense because his IM user name -- his handle -- was new. His entire IM account was new. He hadn't spoken to anyone on it yet and his contact list of empty. A new life in a new city with a new group of friends. Upon moving to the city, Conner had decided that he wanted a fresh start with a fresh social media account. It was easy due to the fact that he hadn't really made any friends in his freshman year at his old school.

Maybe this year will be different...

Conner stared at those five words. His fingers drummed across the A, S, D, and F keys. What should he say? Should he even reply? What if this is just some creepy pervert determined to find him and rape him and kill him in the most excruciatingly painful way possible?

Should he take the chance?

You're a man now, goddammit.

He took a deep breath, exhaled, then started typing:

[09:32:02 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: Who is this?

[09:33:10 PM] @CYBERHEART: I saw you at the 10th grade registration tables Wednesday. I didn't recognize you, and I know almost everyone at this school. So, logic dictates that you're new. Am I right?

[09:33:45 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: How did you get my IM user name? Who are you?

[09:34:01 PM] @CYBERHEART: You might want to change your phone's security settings. It wasn't that hard to hack from where I was standing.

[09:34:15 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: YOU HACKED MY FUCKING PHONE?!

[09:35:00 PM] @CYBERHEART: _Yeah, sorry about that. I was curious about who you were, Conner Frost. _

[09:35:32 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST COME UP TO ME AND ASK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON?!

[09:36:17 PM] @CYBERHEART: _You make a really good point. What if I said that your face had murder written all over it in glowing neon paint? It seriously made me feel like my life was at risk just being in the same room with you. _

[09:36:42 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: So what? I was pissed off. Big deal. You broke into my PHONE, you psychopath! What the hell?!

[09:36:55 PM] @CYBERHEART: _Now, now. There's no need for name calling. I said I was sorry, so how about we just put the whole "he totally invaded my privacy, blah, blah, blah" issue behind us and start fresh. _

[09:37:02 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: That sounds like something that's not going to happen. In fact I'm going to save a screen-shot of this entire conversation so that the police can deal with you.

At the very moment that Conner hit the SEND button, the entire conversation history was wiped from the screen. His jaw dropped in disbelief. Who the fuck was this dude? Or chick? Or whatever. He threw his hands up in frustration in defeat when his browser history failed to bring back the conversation. This was unreal. Un-fucking-believable.

Then there was a new message.

[09:40:07 PM] @CYBERHEART: _That won't work, I'm afraid. I've coded this chat session to disappear the moment you try to take a screen shot. Or copy. Or save. You get the idea. Oh, and my IM handle isn't really a source to me. It gets bounced off of various servers worldwide before it gets to you. Even if you had a team of hackers tracking my every keystroke, you wouldn't be able to find me. I am a shadow in the vast digital ocean that is cyberspace. Can't be just be friends? Give in, Conner! I'm not going to murder your face or anything sinister like that. I just want to get to know you. _

It took Conner a whole five minutes to calm himself enough before he could respond. His veins felt like electrically-charged acid flowed through them. Oh, he was pissed.

[09:45:13 PM] @FROST_FOX5000: _How about you do it like a normal person. Talk to me at school. In person. Best though if you don't tell me that it's you from on here. I might strangle you. _

[09:46:02 PM] @CYBERHEART: _I can see for myself how unwise that would be of me. Don't worry. You'll never know who Cyberheart is. See you at school, Con Con. It's going to be a great year. _

Then the screen went black as Conner's computer shut down. By itself. Without him telling it to.

Seconds ticked by like eons. To say that Conner was a bit shell-shocked would have been a massive understatement.

"What the fucking fuck was all that about?" Conner fumed aloud after what felt like an eternity.

He snatched up his phone, changed every security setting he could think of, and made each of his new passwords twenty-five characters long. According to PasswordCracker.com, it would take a supercomputer 14 quadrillion years to hack.

He repeated the process on his computer before shutting it back down again. He also yanked out the power cord and removed the Ethernet cable.

Just to be sure, you know.

Later, as he stared up at the ceiling waiting for sleep to pull him under, he whispered: "Try hacking my shit now, bitch. Try hacking my shit now."

In his dreams he was surrounded by sentient padlocks made from millions of lines of computer code. They each got vaporized when a robotic rabbit appeared. All it had to do was snap its fingers. Poof, gone.

A line of text appeared above the piles of wasted padlocks, floating neon green in midair:

YOUR MOVE.